Physical mechanism of the transverse instability in radiation pressure ion acceleration

Abstract

The transverse stability of the target is crucial for obtaining high quality ion beams using the laser radiation pressure acceleration (RPA) mechanism. In this letter, a theoretical model and supporting two-dimensional (2D) Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations are presented to clarify the physical mechanism of the transverse instability observed in the RPA process. It is shown that the density ripples of the target foil are mainly induced by the coupling between the transverse oscillating electrons and the quasi-static ions, a mechanism similar to the transverse two stream instability in the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research. The predictions of the mode structure and the growth rates from the theory agree well with the results obtained from the PIC simulations in various regimes, indicating the model contains the essence of the underlying physics of the transverse break-up of the target.

References in corpus (9)

• Ion acceleration by superintense laser-plasma interaction
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• Laser acceleration of ion bunches at the front surface of overdense plasmas
• "Light Sail" Acceleration Revisited
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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Radiation Pressure Driven Ion Weibel Instability and Collisionless Shocks
• Radiation pressure acceleration of high-quality ion beams using ultrashort laser pulses
• Staged laser acceleration of high quality protons from a tailored plasma
• Energy-chirp compensation of laser-driven ion beams enabled by structured targets
• Design of plasma shutters for improved heavy ion acceleration by ultra-intense laser pulses
• On the control of electron heating for optimal laser radiation pressure ion acceleration
• Acceleration and focusing of multispecies ion beam using a converging laser-driven shock
• Optimization of laser-driven proton acceleration in a near-critical-density plasma